Friday, April 5, 2013

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for April 6, 2013

Old Jarhead's Political SitRep for April 6, 2013

Click on the link to see the full SitRep

Robert A. Hall

Your one-stop-shop for political news and opinion. Please forward to friends who need to be informed. This SitRep (Military for “Situation Report”) is created by many readers who send me items for inclusion, which I would have likely missed or skipped. And I can only spend at most three hours a night pulling stuff, plus the healthcare or economic stuff that crosses my desk at work. As always, I—and you—owe them thanks and appreciation. I post articles because I think they are of interest and will stimulate thought and discussion. Doing so doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree (or disagree) with every—or any—opinion in the posted article, or that I was able to verify the information presented, which is the responsibility of the author. I try not to post things that are false, or too far a stretch, regardless of the view point, but I don’t always succeed. As always on the Net, or in the legacy media, you must read critically and with skepticism.

Excerpt: We were told that we’re all special, and we’re waking up to the reality that, if everyone is special, then nobody is. The participation ribbons and soccer trophies we all won are gathering dust in boxes in our parents’ garages because we can’t afford a mantelpiece to display them ourselves.

Excerpt: The unemployment rate fell to 7.6 percent in March but just 88,000 jobs were added, raising fears that the economy is beginning to cool after several strong months. … On Thursday, the Labor Department reported that the number of jobless Americans filing unemployment claims increased for the third consecutive time last week. … "Much of the decline in the unemployment rate has been due to people giving up their job search. A decrease in the unemployment rate and an increase in labor force participation are needed for a healthy recovery," he said. (If all those selfish unemployed people would just quit looking, unemployment would fall to zero and Obama would look great. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: Employers added 88,000 jobs in March, according to the latest unemployment report from the Labor Department. That's down from the 196,000/month average over the last six months. Yet miraculously, the headline unemployment rate dropped from 7.7 percent to 7.6 percent. As with previous drops, however, that's because a staggering 663,000 people simply left the workforce in March and gave up looking for a job. A record 90 million Americans are no longer even seeking employment.

Excerpt: The official US unemployment rate hovers around 8.6 percent (8.5 % as of today), but a better measure of the real jobless rate is called the “U-6” which stands at 15.6 percent (15.2 percent as of today). The U-6 rate includes those that would still like a job and have looked for work in the last twelve months, not just the last four weeks. That means the number of Americans hurt by the bad economy is almost twice what the official number would suggest. In fact, the official rate excludes workers who have decided to drop out of the labor market altogether -- either because they are discouraged or for other reasons -- and also ignores workers who settle for part-time work because they are unable to find a full-time job.

Excerpt: Say what you will, the jury is back in and judgment rendered. Bernanke’s QE has done nothing material of value and he is now doing harm. This is the only chart that matters when it comes to employment, and it sucks.

Excerpt: President Obama will release a budget next week that proposes significant cuts to Medicare and Social Security and fewer tax hikes than in the past, a conciliatory approach that he hopes will convince Republicans to sign onto a grand bargain that would curb government borrowing and replace deep spending cuts that took effect March 1. (The devil’s in the details, as always. Usually Democrats promise cuts in the future that never happen for tax increases now. They wouldn’t do it the other way around, you can be sure. Have to be both now or nothing now. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: Harry Reid has a doozy of a gun plan, but President Obama wants to reassure you that it’s just “common sense.” In a speech Wednesday, Obama said that “opponents of some of these common-sense laws have ginned up fears among responsible gun owners that have nothing to do with what’s being proposed and nothing to do with the facts, but feeds into this suspicion about government.” As Heritage’s David Addington reminds us, America’s founders were the first to have this suspicion of government, and that’s part of the reason why they made certain that the Second Amendment protected our right to keep and bear arms. And as for the facts, the proposals from Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) have major problems.

Mike Lee Hammers the Final Nail in The UN Small Arms Treaty Coffinhttp://freedomoutpost.com/2013/04/mike-lee-hammers-the-final-nail-in-the-un-small-arms-treaty-coffin/Excerpt: On Wednesday Senator Mike Lee became the 34th co-sponsor of S. Con. Res 7, a resolution expressing opposition to the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). The treaty contains several troubling provisions that could prevent the United States from coming to the aid of its closest allies, as well as limit the constitutional rights of Americans. Senator Lee was the 34th co-sponsor of the resolution introduced by Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas, which gives the opposition more than enough votes in the Senate to block ratification of the treaty

Excerpt: Veteran journalist Bill Moyers told his viewers on March 29 that the next time they say the Pledge of Allegiance, they should “remember: it’s a lie. (How much of this liberal network funded by taxpayers? I don't know, but even one dollar would be too much. Let them compete in the marketplace like every other network does. The profit they make on Big Bird alone would fund PBS. – LLW)

Excerpt: A Washington prosecutor who is charging two boys aged 10 and 11 with conspiracy to commit murder concedes that it is "very rare" to try someone so young, but said the felony charges were necessary because the boys' crime was premeditated and experts determined they were "a danger to others." (After every mass murder we always hear, "Why didn't anyone see the signs? They could have stopped this from happening." Well, the signs don't get any clearer than this, yet watch what happens. Some liberal defense attorney will argue that these monsters need counseling, not incarceration. And that's probably what will happen. Minimal jail time while they convince some liberal psychiatrist that they've got their minds right and are not a threat to anyone. And in a year or so, they will be turned loose. Then, someday, they will shoot up a school, or a mall, or a theater, and the usual fools on the networks will start bleating, "Why didn't someone see this coming?" – LLW)

Excerpt: Right in the heart of the tourist area. Estimates of up to crowds of 400. The radio is squawking about State and Chicago, Huron, Ohio, Orleans. Wagons have been called in from at least 4 districts. The Mounted Unit has been clearing streets and breaking up crowds of "youths" for the past few hours.

Excerpt: [I]t is almost a certainty that if these “wildings” continue, the casual tourist will become a rarity in short order, and a tourist intent on enjoying Chicago will come to town armed, as many already do. You don’t hear about it because they aren’t usually confronted by criminals. (Thank White House Resident Barack for this violence. This is what happens when you suggest that blacks are all victims of white race hatred. --Don Hank)

Excerpt: An estimated 620,000 Pentagon health care recipients -- a group that includes military retirees, National Guard members and reservists and the children of some active-duty troops -- struggle to find private doctors who will accept them as patients, according to a new government study.

Excerpt: More than $1.2 billion in cash payments has been awarded to renewable energy projects by the Department of Energy and the Treasury Department since the beginning of the year, with the majority of them going to solar electricity. While other agencies grapple with furloughs and service cuts, the DOE continues to hand out 30 percent of the cost basis for renewable projects under its 1603 program, part of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. (Gut the Green! Cut the Cronies! ~Bob.)

Excerpt: President Obama told a group of Democratic donors Wednesday night that the children killed in the Newtown, Conn. attack last December were shot with a “fully automatic weapon.” (Well, I think we can all agree to vote to renew the ban on fully automatic weapons, which was put in place in the 1930s. Though I’ll have to give up my dreams of having a jeep with Ma Deuce mounted on it. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: The state of the US Air Force’s (USAF’s) fighter force and the morale of its airmen and women have been in a steady spiral of decline since Chief of Staff General Michael Moseley and Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne resigned at the behest of then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in 2008. So, who wouldn’t want to be a fighter pilot? Apparently at least 900 people as judged by the current training and retention shortage within the air force.

Excerpt: As negotiations resumed here on Friday between Iran and the six world powers demanding that it curb its nuclear program, Iran said it had put forward a new “comprehensive proposal” that it hoped would “establish a new bedrock for cooperation.” In a sign that the talks could be headed toward a quick dead-end, the Iranian statement was depicted as a bewildering surprise to the other negotiators, who said they had not received any concrete new proposal.

Excerpt: One of the most boring weeks during my time in Washington has given the press an opportunity to indulge in a gross habit: inflating Hillary Clinton’s already considerable reputation. The Los Angeles Times ridiculously and melodramatically says that this week Clinton “return[ed]” to the “public stage”—a location from which she has never moved an inch since her husband won his first gubernatorial campaign in Arkansas in 1978—“for the opening scene in what many expect to be a carefully plotted performance concluding with another presidential try.”

Excerpt: President Obama's hometown of Chicago still goes by the old nickname "WindyCity." But after three miserable decades of strict gun control and permanent Democratic rule, Chicago has cemented its reputation as America's BloodyCity. No amount of statistical whitewashing can cover up the stains of the left's ideological failures there. But as Obama continues to wage war on law-abiding gun owners, his home team is trying its hardest to spread smiley-face lies upon damned lies to downplay Chicago homicide statistics. (Voters didn’t know that Obama’s “Fundamental Transformation of America” was into Detroit. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: A federal judge has ordered the Food and Drug Administration to make the so-called 'morning after pill' available as an over-the-counter drug to all ages without a prescription. (Wait, does Obamacare pay for OTC meds? ~Bob.)

Nearly 200 have called UF so far about possible identity theft

Nearly 200 people have called theUniversityofFloridaprivacy office and call center worried that they are victims of identity theft after Wednesday's announcement that a former employee had been arrested for his involvement in an identity theft ring that potentially affects more than 14,000 Shands patients.

WaPo Fact Checker: Obama’s continued use of the claim that 40 percent of gun sales lack background checks

Excerpt: Two months ago, we were willing to cut the White House some slack, given the paucity of recent data. But the president’s failure to acknowledge the significant questions about these old data, or his slippery phrasing, leaves us little choice but to downgrade this claim to Three Pinocchios.

Excerpt: During the National Rifle Association’s meeting with Vice President Joe Biden and the White House gun violence task force, the vice president said the Obama administration does not have the time to fully enforce existing gun laws. (For more laws and less enforcement, Vote Democrat! ~Bob.)

Excerpt: The president has certainly done his part. He has held rallies. He has used children as props. He has held events with parents of the little victims of Newtown. He has shamed the nation for its alleged forgetfulness over the terrible events of that day. Yet the needle of public opinion is moving the wrong way.

Excerpt: ‘Shared sacrifice” is one of Obama’s favorite mantras. Translation: The White House shares your money while you sacrifice. Amid the alleged horrors of the sequester, truly shared sacrifice is the last thing on Obama’s mind. (As his contribution to “shared sacrifice” cause by the sequester, President Obama has promised that on upcoming taxpayer-funded vacations to Hawaii, Florida or Martha’s Vineyard, he will only golf 17 holes in a round. His golfing buddies, all of whom received stimulus money, bailouts, Obamacare waivers or green cash incentives for their companies, have vowed to support him by making the 18th hole a “gimmy.” ~Bob.)

Excerpt: You gotta admire the chutzpah that illegal Mexicans bring to the illegal immigration debate. They violate our immigration laws by sneaking into the country in the dead of night, their journey often funded with a back pack full of pot or cocaine, arrive here, procure phony ID, steal an American's Social Security number, avoid taxes by working for cash, refuse to learn English, breed a pack of anchor babies, curse American values, voice their hate for America, then demand that they be made citizens.

Excerpt: File this under “Unbelievable.” We now learn from the Washington Post that the Obama administration, in its relentless quest for “social justice,” is pushing banks to make more loans to people with weak credit ratings.

Excerpt: Gang members often bring to mind guns, violence and drugs—but taxes? …Law enforcement officials say gang members are increasingly focusing on financial crimes because they are more safe and lucrative than selling drugs. The criminals are stealing people’s identities and then filing fraudulent tax returns to get sizeable returns from Uncle Sam. (Per article, even stole a policeman’s ID who covered ID theft for a living…..Barb)

Worth Reading: 25 important things to remember as an investor. By Morgan Housel

Excerpt: What will he say if challenged? That media attention to this is all a Zionist plot designed to discredit Islam? That he was quoted out of context? That no one believes this hadith is really applicable to modern times?

New AFDI Islamic Apartheid ad: "It's Saturday, so massacre the Jews; on Sunday, massacre the Christians"

Excerpt: "We're free, we're naked, it's our right, it's our body, it's our rules, and nobody can use religion, and some other holy things, to abuse women, to oppress them," FEMEN member Alexandra Shevchenko said in Berlin, according to AFP.

Excerpt: Klein surveyed the accumulating wreckage wrought in the implementation phase of Obamacare -- including this week's announcement of a one-year delay in creating the exchanges designed specifically for small businesses -- and observed that "the [Obama] administration has had three years to set up these exchanges. It has failed to do so. This is a really bad sign.

Excerpt: I don’t really follow North Korea (mostly, I try to stay up-to-date on a few countries that begin with the letter “I”), but it seems to me that we are looking at recent events in the wrong context. North Korea is a charter member of the Axis of Evil, and works hand in glove with the other surviving regime of that infamous trinity, Iran. I’ve been writing for years about the intimate relationship between the two, ranging from North Korean assistance in digging tunnels in Iranian mountains and in the Tehran subway system, to Iranian cooperation with North Korean missile and nuclear programs. (Would you like an unpleasant night’s sleep? Try supposing the Iranians, Venezuelans, Burmese, Pakistanis, Bolivians, Nicaraguans, and the rest of the assorted countries, peoples, and groups that hate us joined in an informal alliance. Then, let the Russians and Chinese simply stand aside and watch with glee while reminding the world they “stand for peace and negotiated solutions,” but also ensuring we don’t respond in-kind when trouble starts. Which side do you suppose the “neutral, but not-really-in-love-with-us” countries like Mexico will fall on? Now, set off a few nukes in major US cities with no obvious incoming missiles. [Don’t think it can be done? Think again.] Perhaps, add in a few localized plagues of anthrax, smallpox, and/or SARS-type viruses. Combine it all with the collapsing value of the dollar and a China that announces a fixed gold price for the Yuan. Now, tell me again how you expect to win. I actually feel vindicated by Ledeen’s column; I’ve been saying this for years.--Ron P.)

North Korea has asked embassies to consider moving staff out and warned it cannot guarantee the safety of diplomats after April 10, Britain said, amid high tension and a war of words on the Korean peninsula. The requests come on the heels of declarations by the government of the secretive communist state that real conflict is inevitable, because of what it terms "hostile" U.S. troop exercises with South Korea and U.N. sanctions imposed over North Korea's nuclear weapons testing.

Excerpt: After Thursday, Connecticut should consider changing its state nickname from the “Constitution State” to the “Unconstitutional State,” as Gov. Dannel Malloy signed an extremely restrictive gun-control law. The bill passed the state House Thursday morning and the Senate on Wednesday. (On the plus side, maybe the thugs will migrate to the blue states. Houston, with concealed carry and about the same population as Chicago, though more minorities, has about half the gun deaths of Obamaville, with restrictive gun laws. ~Bob.)

Excerpt: In recent months, there seems to have been an explosion of reported child sexual assaults committed by Mexican nationals, in this country illegally. But, why? The most troubling and telling reason behind the growing epidemic of child molestation at the hands of illegal aliens, may lie in the fact the age of sexual consent throughout the majority of Mexico is 12 years of age.

Excerpt: Now, the passenger report. I know the real names of the family, in Baltimore, lodging the complaint below. For now I am not using their names, although on my inquiry they said they would be willing to be identified if necessary. (As in none whatsoever, don't even THINK about complaining about anything on the flight! Read the report of the incident, and then the reply from United about it. See if you find the incident as outrageous as I do, and if the response is as shallow and nonresponsive as it seems to me. I will be carefully avoiding flying anywhere on United. Feel free to pass this on far & wide for consumers to see. --Del)